Shenzhou-8 returns safely to Earth

The unmanned Shenzhou-8 Chinese spacecraft returned to Earth on Thursday night after it docked twice with an orbiting module in preparation for the country launching its own space station.

The craft landed by parachute in China's western desert after more than two weeks in space. It docked twice with the Tiangong 1 module, which remains in orbit, during a mission proving China capable of successfully docking by remote control. Early U.S. astronauts did so manually.


1 comment:

  1. It's interesting that while Shenzhou's design is based on Soyuz and outwardly it looks a lot like Soyuz, it's actually about 10% bigger.

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